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Brief Synopsis

Promoters (Menjou and Oakie) set up a radio contest to find the average American (Haley) and use him to sell food, apparel and notions. All goes well until he falls in love with a girl (Whelan) who upsets things.

Bumbler Henry Smith of Plainville, Missouri learns that he has won the $25,000 Average Man Contest, which over three million Americans have entered. He immediately signs a contract to buy a house, purchases a car with money loaned by his girl friend Madge Raines's father Joe and presents Madge with a ring. Henry's answers to 99 of the 100 questions in the contest concerning his preference of food, clothes, consumer products and habits exactly match those of the "average man," as computed from the answers of all the contestants. Because of this, J. B. Harcourt, the president of the New York ad agency running the contest, decides to hire Henry and observe his reactions to various products, so that the agency's clients can predict if their new products will catch on with the public. When J. B.'s assistant, Kay Swift, points out that Henry's tastes may change after he receives the $25,000, J. B. schemes to have Henry disqualified and then offers him a position with the firm. Once Henry accepts, J. B. orders his assistant Bates, who is in love with Kay, to live with Henry and keep a record of everything he does. Soon J. B.'s new company, Guidance, Inc., has amazed the business world with its predictions based on Henry's offhanded remarks concerning new products. When the company announces that it is seeking the typical American girl for the upcoming New York World's Fair, Henry suggests Madge, and she is brought to the city as Miss World's Fair. Afraid that marriage will change Henry, Bates connives to keep him away from Madge. When Henry, in a depressed state, does absent-minded things like put ketchup in his coffee and shave with toothpaste, Kay realizes that Henry is lovesick, and she convinces J. B. to try to get him and Madge together again. However, just then, a European ambassador hires the company to predict the circumstances under which the average American would be willing to go to war. To begin their scheme to test Henry, J. B. sends Bates to take Henry to a Russian bath, and Bates arranges for Henry to be beaten with switches of poison ivy, so that he will have to be confined to a room. J. B. and Kay then arrange for Henry to receive phony newspapers and to hear fake radio broadcasts containing made-up incidents of growing international tension that appear to be real. Henry is adamant that the country should keep out of war until he hears on a broadcast that the Atlantic sea coast has been bombarded and hundreds have been killed. Finally Henry is aroused, feeling that American lives and democracy are endangered, and he leaves the room in a hurry, wearing only his pajamas, to enlist. After seeing homes wrecked, but not noticing a nearby wrecking company sign, Henry runs into a marine recruiting office, and they think he is crazy. Bates, also without his pants, is arrested as he chases Henry. After he is released, he finds Henry in a mental hospital, where the marines have taken him. The situation is straightened out, Henry is paid $100,000 for being a guinea pig and he is named "Man of the Year" by Time Magazine. He is reunited with Madge and given a "welcome home" parade in Plainville, during which he plays the clarinet and J. B. and Bates play the bass drum.